Coupons wtf?

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Romr123
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Coupons wtf?

Post by Romr123 »

What's going on these days with coupons? I (dinosaur) still get a Sunday paper which 3 weeks out of 4 has one or more FSIs (free-standing inserts---i.e. coupons). About every other week I get a duplicate in the junk mail. Generally they're patent medicines, cosmetics and a few other manufacturers (Unilever, P&G, some esoteric food mfgrs).

I usually clip the coupons (generally 4-6 week expiration dates though some do extend out).

Last week headed to a Target to get some things from the Sunday prior's coupons. At checkout, was told "these aren't in the database". Manager was called over, was going to give me the $$$ off but was huffing and puffing (and these were from the local newspaper just a few days before). I just left the order in the store and forgot about it (this Target has given problems with coupons in the past, so I put it down to that).

Yesterday went into Rite Aid to do a similar thing (coupons from Sunday, higher value this time ($5 sunscreen coupons). When I got to the checkout, they didn't scan and the checker said "oh, these aren't valid yet--not until the 25th". She showed me on her screen where they had that specific limitation. There was no "good after" date on the coupons.

Anyone know what's going on here?
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Re: Coupons wtf?

Post by SamSpade »

Yeesh, manufacturers. :'(

Maybe your local newspaper's print house has cut back so much on staffing that they are incorrectly inserting coupons ahead of their 'on sale' date? I would imagine most of these glossy inserts are proofed and printed and delivered well in advance of most local print product's 'final deadline' for a week.

I'm sorry to hear about the troubles for you, Romr.

It's not a dinosaur move to get a Sunday newspaper, but instead that so much of the content that used to make them worth obtaining has disappeared. When I was in the airport, I picked up our market's secondary newspaper (available only one one side of the Columbia river) and they are moving to a "weekend edition" which I assume will be released on Saturdays, not Sundays.
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Re: Coupons wtf?

Post by BillyGr »

Romr123 wrote: June 9th, 2023, 6:09 am What's going on these days with coupons? I (dinosaur) still get a Sunday paper which 3 weeks out of 4 has one or more FSIs (free-standing inserts---i.e. coupons). About every other week I get a duplicate in the junk mail. Generally they're patent medicines, cosmetics and a few other manufacturers (Unilever, P&G, some esoteric food mfgrs).

I usually clip the coupons (generally 4-6 week expiration dates though some do extend out).

Last week headed to a Target to get some things from the Sunday prior's coupons. At checkout, was told "these aren't in the database". Manager was called over, was going to give me the $$$ off but was huffing and puffing (and these were from the local newspaper just a few days before). I just left the order in the store and forgot about it (this Target has given problems with coupons in the past, so I put it down to that).

Yesterday went into Rite Aid to do a similar thing (coupons from Sunday, higher value this time ($5 sunscreen coupons). When I got to the checkout, they didn't scan and the checker said "oh, these aren't valid yet--not until the 25th". She showed me on her screen where they had that specific limitation. There was no "good after" date on the coupons.

Anyone know what's going on here?
The Target thing is some type of new program being offered which helps them redeem the coupons. Basically, it matches them to the database, and they get credited for those immediately (rather than having to send them somewhere), as I remember reading, since that matching validates that they are legitimate and correct for the items more than the standard checks did.

I believe they can still enter them (as it sounds like the manager was going to do) and then just have to send them in as previously, but some may not want to take the extra effort to do that (and then keep them separated or whatever has to happen).

Not sure on the Rite Aid thing, but there have been a few coupons that would have a start date, usually the day the paper should have come out, but sometimes those freebie ones you mention come out earlier (though not usually weeks earlier). I guess it's not surprising that others do as well, just not on the printed part but rather in the barcode (which no real person can decipher to know).

Probably more what Sam suggested, someone put the "wrong" ones into a paper that should have gone out later in the month (since 6/25 is a Sunday, that makes sense they were for that week's ads).

One thing to do - check sunday-coupon-preview.net as they usually list what is coming out - sometimes they won't be exact for your area, but if you get nothing that matches, you probably got the wrong insert. Also, the date is usually printed along the edge where the outer page folds, but can be very small/hard to read.
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Re: Coupons wtf?

Post by Super S »

SamSpade wrote: June 9th, 2023, 10:23 am Yeesh, manufacturers. :'(

Maybe your local newspaper's print house has cut back so much on staffing that they are incorrectly inserting coupons ahead of their 'on sale' date? I would imagine most of these glossy inserts are proofed and printed and delivered well in advance of most local print product's 'final deadline' for a week.

I'm sorry to hear about the troubles for you, Romr.

It's not a dinosaur move to get a Sunday newspaper, but instead that so much of the content that used to make them worth obtaining has disappeared. When I was in the airport, I picked up our market's secondary newspaper (available only one one side of the Columbia river) and they are moving to a "weekend edition" which I assume will be released on Saturdays, not Sundays.
Many newspapers aren't even operating their own presses any more. The Longview Daily News has outsourced to a press operation in Albany, Oregon, and is now cutting back to three editions per week that will be delivered by mail instead of their own carriers. They won't be able to control their own delivery this way.
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Re: Coupons wtf?

Post by storewanderer »

Target is not supposed to accept any coupon that their system does not validate. I had some coupons that were stickers/attached to a product, the self checkout clerk physically peeled them off the items for me and scanned them and an alert came up "this coupon cannot be accepted at Target." It was a manufacturer coupon that did not name any specific retailer, unexpired, and I saw them attached to this same product at various grocery stores, however, the same product at Wal Mart had no coupons attached.

Some other employee who acted like they were in charge came over and said the coupons weren't supposed to be on the items then got called away and did not tell the self check attendant how to proceed. This wasn't the first time I had an issue with Target and coupons not scanning that were stuck to products. The self check attendant offered to price override the items down by the value of the coupons and then gave me the coupons back and said "maybe you can try to use them somewhere else." I tried to give them back saying he should keep them for reimbursement and he insisted "no it says we don't accept this coupon, I can throw them away for you if you want" so I just let him do that so it didn't look like I was walking off with the coupons.

They are enhancing the coupons so they only scan on the intended start date. However if the coupon does not print the start date, it seems to me the cashier should override it because how does anyone know the coupon start date if there is nothing printed on the coupon? Also who knows if the message on the register showing the start date is actually accurate or some kind of a strange system response. I'd ask Rite Aid to do a "post coupon" in that instance (you pay full price then they do a refund after of the coupon).

I don't know if you shop CVS but CVS has disabled the register ability to manually enter coupons that do not scan. However the self checkouts still have the ability to manually input a coupon amount and select either store coupon or manufacturer coupon but relatively few employees seem to know about that and even fewer will use it. They like to price override off the value of the coupon (which screws up all the buy x get back y things).
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Re: Coupons wtf?

Post by BillyGr »

Super S wrote: June 9th, 2023, 1:39 pm
SamSpade wrote: June 9th, 2023, 10:23 am Yeesh, manufacturers. :'(

Maybe your local newspaper's print house has cut back so much on staffing that they are incorrectly inserting coupons ahead of their 'on sale' date? I would imagine most of these glossy inserts are proofed and printed and delivered well in advance of most local print product's 'final deadline' for a week.

I'm sorry to hear about the troubles for you, Romr.

It's not a dinosaur move to get a Sunday newspaper, but instead that so much of the content that used to make them worth obtaining has disappeared. When I was in the airport, I picked up our market's secondary newspaper (available only one one side of the Columbia river) and they are moving to a "weekend edition" which I assume will be released on Saturdays, not Sundays.
Many newspapers aren't even operating their own presses any more. The Longview Daily News has outsourced to a press operation in Albany, Oregon, and is now cutting back to three editions per week that will be delivered by mail instead of their own carriers. They won't be able to control their own delivery this way.
That is also true. We have one here where it is printed in another part of the state (where the company owning it at this point has HQ, they are looking to sell it to another company that owns other papers in this area) and then sent here to be distributed by mail.

That actually works fairly well - one goes missing occasionally, but often shows up the following day with the next issue (unlike the carrier delivered one that has missed two days in the past few weeks and just gives a credit and never shows up at all).

That paper publishes Tue-Sat (which works well for mail, since no mail Sunday and many Monday holidays as well), and they include the Sunday stuff (ads, coupons, comics etc.) with the Saturday issue.
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Re: Coupons wtf?

Post by mjhale »

storewanderer wrote: June 10th, 2023, 12:50 am Some other employee who acted like they were in charge came over and said the coupons weren't supposed to be on the items then got called away and did not tell the self check attendant how to proceed. This wasn't the first time I had an issue with Target and coupons not scanning that were stuck to products. The self check attendant offered to price override the items down by the value of the coupons and then gave me the coupons back and said "maybe you can try to use them somewhere else." I tried to give them back saying he should keep them for reimbursement and he insisted "no it says we don't accept this coupon, I can throw them away for you if you want" so I just let him do that so it didn't look like I was walking off with the coupons.
I had a similar thing happen with an internet printed coupon from Proctor and Gamble at Target. P&G used to have a monthly coupon circular that went out the last week of every month. Now all of those coupons are print online from their web site. I only went to Target because the item the coupon went with was also on sale. The coupon would not scan at all. I have a high quality laser printer and I had used another coupon from the same print at the local grocery store. The self-checkout cashier just did a price override down to whatever the cost of the item with the coupon would have been.

I have to wonder how much of this is stores not wanting to process paper coupons anymore. That forces people to use digital coupons via the store's app. The amount of coupons that are in printed form has gone way down over years. I don't have a problem with digital coupons as long as the store that is offering them has a good end price after the coupon. Most times Walmart and Target have the lowest prices for HBA type product. Thankfully I rarely have a problem with paper coupons at Walmart. When I do the self-checkout person just overrides to take the coupon. If Target will do the same consistently then no problem for the few times they have something on sale that with the coupon it ends up being cheaper than Walmart and a very good deal.
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Re: Coupons wtf?

Post by Romr123 »

It's never a problem at Meijer....just one more reason to avoid that Target (I really don't like that one--former Greatland in a status-conscious icky suburb).
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Re: Coupons wtf?

Post by storewanderer »

Romr123 wrote: June 10th, 2023, 3:09 pm It's never a problem at Meijer....just one more reason to avoid that Target (I really don't like that one--former Greatland in a status-conscious icky suburb).
Target was very coupon friendly before COVID. It was one of the easiest stores to coupon. If coupons didn't scan or you forgot coupons, no problem, they had a missed coupons function on the register and promptly issued a refund.

There are so few paper coupons now. I get almost none for grocery items. I was getting some for Unilever items in the mail but lately haven't seen those. Most are beauty or cleaning products. I think a lot of parties want paper coupons gone but they just never die. Right when one big brand gets rid of them, competing brands decide to go all in on coupons. Coupons can save consumers a lot of money if they are available for relevant items so the longer we can get these coupons to stick around, the better it is for consumers.

I've heard rumors one major grocer wants to stop accepting paper coupons entirely and only accept digital coupons. So far that policy hasn't been implemented. There must be enough competition to keep them in line. That may change in early 2024 if they get what they act like they want, but I hope it doesn't.
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Re: Coupons wtf?

Post by Bagels »

Most merchants haven’t remitted paper coupons to the manufacture in years. I worked in the office of a local independent grocer on weekends during 2008-09. We’d reconcile the coupons daily and monthly we’d submit an electronic request for reimbursement from the clearing houses. The coupons were stored in brown grocery sacks for one year, the maximum time a clearing house had to perform an audit. We got laid even if a cashier accepted a coupon they shouldn’t have.

That said, this was shortly before Extreme Couponing and the subsequent abuse, so I’m sure they’ve tightened things up.
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